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Here’s a Quick Way to Fix Your Website

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From Flickr by Tom Maisey

Your website needs to be fixed immediately!  You never get a second chance to make a first impression!

That goes for your website too.

If you are using your website to generate leads, gather email addresses, produce revenue or any other business enterprise, you better make sure it works.  If people land on your site and are immediately turned off, then your site has cost you greatly.

Every King has a Queen

I firmly believe that content is King when it comes to your website.  Quality content is what brings people to your site and valuable content is what keeps them coming back.  If you fail to create good, high value, quality content, you will not get traffic and you will not be able to grow your business.

The Queen to the content King is quality web design.

When visitors hit your site for the first time, you have less than the blink of an eye to get your visitors attention.  That’s fast!

Before a visitor has a chance to engage with your amazing content, they make a snap judgment and take action.  If you site meets expectations, they read the headline.  If the site fails to meet expectations, they hit the back button and your bounce rate soars.

It is quality site design that helps pull your audience into the site.  If it looks old and dated, then the inference is your content is old and outdated.  If it looks to flashy and “slick,” then the inference is your trying to sell me on something or that your “slick” yourself.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure you start with good site design.

Three Tips For Site Design

1.  Site Usability

A website should be simple, intuitive and require no technical skill to navigate and use.  It should be obvious to the user what they should do and where they should click.  The usability of your site is important for business owners.  If it does not move visitors into you lead or sales funnel, then your site is costing you money.

Look around your site for ways to simplify the way your site works.  Can you reduce the number of buttons?  Maybe get rid of some the ads or clutter that draws the eye around the page.  Maybe it’s time to think about getting rid of those animated .gif’s and flash banners.

Keep the site simple to use and easy to navigate.  Make it useable.

2. Accessibility

We live in a mobile world and there is a growing amount of site traffic coming from mobile devices.  The smart phone and tablet have really changed the way people surf the web.

I am in the process of making this site responsive.  Responsive designs are capable of adjusting to the browser or device.  The images scale, the font changes size, the order of the content adjust as you scale down from desktop to smartphone.  There is no need to generate a full version and a mobile version.

You need to make sure you website is accessible to your target audience.  Getting a better understanding of your audience and how they connect with you will help make sure your site is accessible.

3.  Design

Your color palette and graphics communicate information to your site visitors.  Is it warm or cool?  Do you depend heavily on graphics or is the site clean and simple?  Understanding your audience will help guide your design choices.

Since a visitor is going to make a snap judgement, make sure the site is visually appealing.  It should capture the right audience for your business.

Let Your Site Work For You

If you already have a website, make sure it is connecting with your audience.  Do some research.  Ask some questions.  Get some information.  If you are armed with information, you can make intelligent decisions about the changes you need to make.  If you do them strategically, you will see improvement in site traffic, bounce rate and engagement.

If you are in the process of creating a website, make sure you keep your audience in mind and design a site that meets their needs.  Only add those things that will help your visitors become clients.  There are some great WordPress designs that are pre-built that make great impressions.  I always recommend the Genesis Framework and can help you build a quality design.

What other tips do you have for site design?  Share them in the comments below.

Creating Navigation Menu with StudioPress

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Adding navigation to a StudioPress child theme is a simple process when you know the steps.  In version 1.8, you will need to use the WordPress Menu creator to generate your Primary and Secondary navigation menus.  But first,  you have to make sure Genesis is setup.

Setting Up Genesis

Genesis Theme SettingsIn the Dashboard, go to Genesis>Settings>Theme Settings.  This will take you to the Genesis setup window for you to set all the defaults.

Scroll down to the Navigation Settings meta box.  Here you will see two check boxes, one for Primary Navigation and the other for Secondary Navigation.  Check the box for the navigation menu you want to use.

By checking one or both of these boxes, Genesis will add the necessary code to the site to render the navigation menus.

Genesis Navigation Settings

Setting up the Menu

WordPress MenuNow that Genesis is ready for the menu, WordPress can create the menu and populate the navigation.  In the dashboard, go to Appearance>Menus.

Click the plus sign, [+], at the top of the page.  In the Menu Name field, type ‘Primary Navigation’ and click ‘Create Menu.’

Creating Primary Navigation Menu

You will now have access to three new metaboxes, the Theme Locations, Custom Links, Pages and Categories.  If you have other plugins or software installed, you may have additional options.

  • The Theme Locations is your Primary and Secondary navigation that is activated by Genesis Settings.
  • The Custom Links allows you to create links to external pages or sites by adding the URL and a Menu Label (name).
  • The Pages box lists all the pages you’ve created.  They will be sorted by ‘Most Recent’, but you can ‘View All’ or ‘Search’ for specific pages.
  • The Category box list all the categories that you’ve created for your posts.

WordPress Menu PageWordPress Theme NavigationIn the Theme Locations metabox, select the Primary Navigation from the drop down.  Now go to the Pages metabox and select all of the pages that you want included in your Primary Navigation.  Place a check in the check boxes and then click ‘Add to Menu.’

All the pages will populate the menu field to the right of the metaboxes.

You can then drag the boxes around to get the navigation in the order you want it to appear on your site.  Move them up and down to arrange the order, move them under and indented to make them a submenu.  You can move them around to fit your desired navigation structure.

WordPress Primary Navigation

Onc you have the menu the way you want it, click ‘Save Menu’ and you menu will be live on the site.  Go to a page on the site and you will see the Primary Navigation displayed the way you set it up in the dashboard.

Primary Navigation

You can add pages or remove pages as often as you need.  When you create a new page, if you want it to be included in the navigation, you will have to manually add it in the Menu.

If you have any questions, leave them in comments below.

How much does a website cost?

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Small Business MarketingAs a web design and developer, one of the first questions I’m frequently asked is “How much does a website cost?”  I understand the reason for asking, but it is a very difficult question to answer.  It’s kind of like asking, “How much is a car?”

There are several factors that go into the cost of a website and I want to break them down so you can have a better understanding of what to expect.

Site Design

Depending on where you are with your business or blog, you may need to invest in a site design.  A website design needs to reflect your business, matching your logo and company image.  Your company needs to project the same look in print and online and having a quality design will help make that happen.

Design Cost

I tend to break design into three categories: template, semi-custom, custom

A template is a prebuilt design that you can use for your site.  It is often professionally designed and offered for sale on template or theme sites.  These templates can be very professional in look and meet your needs.  This is the lowest cost option.  Themes can range from $10 and up.

A semi-custom site begins with a template or theme and is modified to match your business colors.  There is very minor changes to the theme, a color palette is altered, a logo or graphic may be added, and some very simple and basic layout changes may be available.

This is an intermediate option and can cost between $200 and $500.

A custom site is designed completely for your business.  A designer will take the time to develop a completely new and unique look for your site.  There will be custom images and graphics developed to match your company look.  This is the most expensive option available.

Cost will begin at about $1,000.00 and will go up depending on the designer, complexity, and time frame.

Site Development

Once you have a site design, whether from a template or custom work, you will need to turn that into a working website.  Web development is the process turning your design into a website for the Internet or an intranet.  Web development cost will vary depending on the platform you choose to use.

There are two classes of web platforms, open-source and proprietary.  Open-sourced platforms are free from patent and copyright liability and are free to use and modify.  Open-sourced platforms reduce the cost of entry and provide access to any and all users.  Some open-source development platforms are WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and MySQL.

Proprietary platforms are “closed” systems.  Software companies design and develop software and then protect that software from users by keeping the source code hidden.  To use the software requires the user to purchase a license from the manufacture.

Converting a design into a working website is going to be connected to the platform your developer uses, their level of experience and expertise, and the complexity of your site.

A simple site consisting of static content, a blog and some simple content management will begin at $1,000.00 and go up.  As you add features like shopping cart, membership services, forums, social network, etc, the price will grow proportionate to the complexity.

Hosting and Registration

Once you have a site designed and developed you will need a place to store and serve the site.  This is done from a computer called a server attached to the Internet.  A hosting company will provide you with storage for your site and the appropriate bandwidth.

Hosting

There are three flavors of web hosting: Shared, VPS, and Dedicated

A shared hosting environment occurs when several websites are sharing the same resources from a single server.  Many web hosting companies will host 100’s of sites on a single server.  Each site has access to the servers processors and memory and will share those resources.  Shared hosting will cost between $3.95 and $9.95 per month.  Most will allow you unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.  Read the fine print and be aware of what your host is providing before you sign any agreements.

Shared hosting is satisfactory for small sites with less than 1000 unique visitors per day.  This is going to vary with hosting providers.

The Virtual Private Server is a server where you have dedicated services of processor and memory.  You are still sharing a server with other sites, but you have a dedicated amount of the server resources available only to you.  This increases your sites performance and limits residual impact from a shared environment.  The VPS is a good option for sites that are growing and need more resources for their site.

The VPS hosting begins around $14.95 per month.

The Dedicated Server is for larger sites with large amounts of traffic.  A site on a Dedicated server has all the resources of the server dedicated to their website.  All the processor and RAM is dedicated to your site.  Dedicated hosting is ideal for sites that are growing and have several thousand unique visitors per day.

The Dedicated hosting plans begin around $150 per month and will go up from there.  There is not a ceiling on hosting cost.  As you need more storage or bandwidth, you can add more servers to your network.

Domain Registration

Before you site can be found online, you need a domain.  The domain is the name of your website.  A registrar is a company that registers your domain with ICANN.  This will cost about $10 per year.  It is an annual cost and many hosting companies will register your domain for free as long as you maintain hosting.

The Cost

How much does a website cost?  It depends on what you want.  It can cost as little as a few hundred dollars or as much as several thousand dollars.  The only way to know for sure is to discuss your needs and get a quote for your project.

I always recommend bringing your budget when you meet to discuss your website.  Most of the time, a professional designer or developer will be able to help prioritize your needs so you can get all you can and stay in budget.  The budget is critical.

Now it’s your turn

What are you questions about the cost associated with a website?  Ask them in the comments below and I’ll be sure to answer them.

 

5 Easy Steps to SEO with WordPress

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For a site to be effective in the search engines, you want to make sure you’ve got all the basics covered, starting with the on-site changes and then moving to the off-page parts of SEO. I’m going to show you 5 steps to creating a rock-solid SEO platform for your WordPress site to grow on.

Permalinks & Title Tags

3 of the most important elements for your site structure are:

– Title tag
– URL
– Meta description

Title
The <title> attribute is your best chance to tell Google what your site is about. You will find some title’s like “Home” on a website. That is horrible because it says nothing about who you are or what you do.

Think about ‘Home’ or ‘Welcome’ versus this title in Google: ‘Cincinnati SEO Company ABC | SEO, PPC, Email Marketing Services’

Sure, it’s a little bit longer, and might get cut off at the end, but in general you are helping your visitors AND the search engines understand more about you and your content so they can best serve it to people who are searching.

URLs
By default wordpress uses IDs to create the URLs of your site, and they aren’t very people friendly.

Example

Bad : yoursite.com/?p=24
Good : yoursite.com/locations/chicago

Meta description
Meta description is the snippet of text you see under the listing. Sometimes it’s very short or very obscure.

The meta description area is your last chance to entice the visitor to click on your website and select it over all the rest on the page. You can put in reputation words like ‘voted best X’ or offer a deal ‘Offering 50% off on all X’.

You only have a few sentences before it gets chopped off, so be as succinct and clear as possible.

You can see a real word examples of good vs bad Title, URL and Meta Description below for the keyword ‘hiking trail’

Bad example Title tag for SERP:

 

Bad example URL for SERP:

 

Good URL, Title and Meta Description for SERP:

 

The WordPress SEO plugin can help you easily change each of these 3 issues in no time. More on the plugin in step 2.

Crawlability

Once you are set up with good titles and descriptions, you need Google to find and index all your content so it can show it to visitors in the search engine results page (SERP).

We’re going to make sure you have a good robot.txt file and an XML sitemap.

Some of your pages might not have links to them or might be very deep inside your site and the crawlers might not read their content very often.

Joost de Valk, who goes by Yoast, has a great SEO plugin for wordpress called, ironically, ‘WordPress SEO’.

This plugin will help you manage the elements discussed in Step 1 as well as your XML sitemap and robots.txt file.

Robots.txt defines what the search engine spiders can crawl on your website and what they can’t.  If they can’t crawl it and read it, technically it shouldn’t show up in the SERPs. Sometimes you don’t want certain things showing up — but you also want to make sure that the stuff you do want to show up, does.

Inside the Indexation area of Joost’s plugin you can select if you want things like your categories and tags archives to be allowed or disallowed. You want to avoid having duplicate content on your website and confusing Google as to which page should rank and which shouldn’t.

WordPress has ways of creating multiple links to the same content and you want to avoid indexing those pages where ever you can.

XML sitemaps is a list of every page on your website in one file that the spiders can read to discover your content more easily. Again, the WordPress SEO plugin will create this for you and automatically add new pages that you create to the file.

It’s great.

Basic Link Opportunities

Once you’re done your on-page optimizations, you need to work on off-page optimization, AKA links.

Links are the basic element of SEO. It can get very complicated once you grow and want to rank for difficult keywords, because not all links are equal.

For example, if your competitor has 50 links and you have 51, that doesn’t mean you will rank higher.  However, I’ve never seen someone rank well with 0 links, so they absolutely are vital to success.

Here are some places to start with that you can get links from :

– Good directories, like DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory and business/niche directories.
There are thousands out there and most are garbage. Make sure that by adding your site it would help a real person out by having you in there, not just to try and get some SEO value from it. You want to stay away from spam/crap sites that could hurt your profile.

– Business partners (suppliers, distributors, etc) – ask that they put a link to your site showing that they work with you

– Social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more will let you create a profile with a link. Sometimes they are nofollow (so you won’t get much SEO benefit) but they get crawled a lot and it will help to discover your content.

– Submit a piece of content to high quality article directories, How-to websites and do a press release. You will be able to define the anchor text linking back to your site which will help you target your keywords.

– Add valuable comments on blogs in your industry/nich that you can contribute to.
Most likely you’ll drive traffic as well, as many people like to read the comments and will click on people they find useful or interesting. Many blogs make their links nofollow, but not all. So you will get some SEO benefit from this. However, do not hire an outsourced firm to write thousands of low-quality comments on blogs like great post! to try and get higher search results.. it doesn’t work.

Local Listings

If you have a local business you can get your company listed in local directories for your city and in sites like Angieslist, YellowPages. Do a search for businesses like yours in your area and find the sites that they already have profiles in.

Monitoring Tools

So say you do all of this work.. how do you know if it did anything? By the traffic and (hopefully) sales of course!

Here are 2 tools we’ll use to monitor traffic and other analytics for the site.

Google Analytics
Google Webmaster Tools

Both are free and work really well. They can get complicated, but the basic functionality is easy to understand.

To set up Google Analytics first you’ll need to create an account on the site – google.com/analytics then you can install another plugin by Yoast called Google Analytics for WordPress which makes configuring your site very easy. You’ll just select the profile you created on google.com/analytics from a dropdown inside your wordpress dashboard, and you’re done!

Then you’ll be able to see how much traffic you’re getting, which keywords are sending you traffic and where those people are coming from.

After you’ve set up GA, you’ll want to set up WMT (Google Webmaster Tools).

Google Webmaster Tools is a site that allows you to manage other aspects of your site.

Here is where you can tell Google where your XML sitemaps file is that you created earlier so it can better find your content.

Also you be able to tell it if your site is tarted to a specific language or region and things like if you prefer the www version of your site to be shown or the non-www (example.com or www.example.com) by the way, those are NOT the same thing!

You can spend a lot of time learning these tools to get more value out of them, and I recommend you do.

Using these 5 tactics you will be off to a great start. SEO is a very long term process — the harder the niche & keywords, the longer and harder it will be to rank, but you will get there eventually. Don’t give up!

Focus on putting out great content and be in it for the long haul.

Target photo credit Magnifying glass credit

Social Media Not Good for Local Business

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Social Media LogosIf you’re running a small business and your market is primarily your local area, then social media may be of little value to business success.

The Pew Internet Study

A recent Pew Internet study looked at where people are getting information about local businesses.  They found that most people are turning to the interent (51%), over newspaper (31%), word of mouth (23%), and TV (8%).

A small business website is critical for the success of your business.  Since the turn of the century, the most important component of your small business has been a website.  With the advent of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, there has been a growing push to have your business on these networks.

Social media may not be good for local business marketing . . . yet.

According the study, only 3% of the responders used social media to get information about a local business.  Only 3%.  This seems counter intuitive with so many people using the social network.

Social Network Fails

Social networks are great for connecting with people.  They seem to work well for larger businesses that are marketing to build brand awareness and community.  These companies spend a larger amount of time, energy, and money using social networks to grow their market share and build affinity to a brand.

Most local businesses use the web to gain more business and/or generate more leads.  They are not trying to build brand awareness or develop community.  There just isn’t enough time or money for most small business owners to divide their resources to develop a quality social media strategy that would generate a great return.

Social media is great for business, but it doesn’t seem to be ideal for most local business.  There has to be strategic design to get a return.

8 Simple Solutions to Secure a WordPress Install

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Protect yourself from predators!  They come in all shapes and sizes.  Some with big fangs and others with pocket protectors.  If your website is build using WordPress, there are some things you NEED to do to make sure it is secure from predators, a.k.a. HACKERS!

se·cu·ri·ty (si?kyo?orit?) noun

1.  The state of being free from danger or threat.

2.  The safety of a state or organization against criminal activity such as terrorism, theft, or espionage.

Simple Solutions to a Secure WordPress

Being hacked is never a good thing.  It makes us feel violated. Our life gets hugely interrupted.  And, if your website is crucial for your business, it is costing you money.

You cannot completely prevent your website from being hacked, but you can make it more difficult, which causes many hackers to move on to the next victim.

 

1.  Password Security

If you are like most people, you have a single password for all of your online accounts.  The same password is used for your gmail account and your administration account for your website.

Rule Number One, secure your password.  Immediately, log into your website, go to Users/Your Profile and change your password.  Use something complex.  Use numbers, letters and special characters.  A password like abc123 is not nearly as secure as b477m4n* (battman using alpha-numeric and symbols).  Make it unique yet memorable.

Now. . .

Don’t read another word, until you have made this change. . . . I’ll wait!

2.  WordPress is Vulnerable

Let’s be frank.  WordPress is an open-sources application.  Although this is wonderful for many reasons, it also introduces several potential problems.  The fact that any one can download the source code means that a non-friendly person, HACKER, can download the software, explore it’s code, find vulnerabilities and exploit them.

This presents a constant problem and the friendly people at Automattic are continually offering updates that help address these issues.

Therefore, update WordPress as quickly as possible.  They roll out updates 3 – 4 times per year.  Keep your install up to date.

This goes for Plugins also.

3.  File Permissions

Most of your directories and files installed with WordPress should be protected based on file permissions.  By limiting who has access to files and directories, you can limit potential points of exploitation.

Using an FTP client, such as FileZila or FireFTP, you can access your WordPress files.  Check the permissions and make sure the directories are set to 755 and the files are set to 644.

These are the recommended permissions settings from WordPress and limit access from non-authorized users.

4.  Secure wp-config.php

By default, this file is placed in the same directory as all WordPress files and directories.  You can move the file up one directory to place it outside the grasp of would be hackers.

This is a critical file because it contains the username and password to your database as well as the security keys used to keep the site protected.

If wp-config.php is in public_html/wordpress/wp-config.php move it to public_html/wp-config.php.

You can also add the following to your .htaccess file to add another layer of protection:

[code]# to protect wp-config.php
<Files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>[/code]

5.  Database Security

When WordPress is initially setup, wp_ is the default database prefix.  Since this is well know and most users do not take the time to change it to a random string, this poses a potential vulnerability.

Use the WP Prefix Changer to change the prefix.  This should only be used on a currently installed site.  Use a very random sting alpha-numeric characters.  Because this is not something you need to remember for later use, make it as random as possible.

6.  Username Obscurity

The default username upon a WordPress install is admin.  If you have not created a unique username, then everyone knows half of the login credentials to your site.  And if you have not changed your password, they can probably figure out the other half.

Make it more of a challenge.

You cannot change the username once it is created.  So, the simplest solution is to create a second username with administrator rights and delete the Admin account.

7.  Backups are Critical

Making regular backups of your database and your source files is imperative for security.  If your site gets hacked and you have a fresh, secure backup, you can restore your site in a matter of minutes and be back up and running in no time.  Without a backup, you are at the mercy of your hosting provider and that is not a good place to be.

I recommend WP-DB Manager to monitor and create regular backups of the database.  It is a free plugin and works well for database maintenance and security.  You can create scheduled backups and have those emailed off site so you have a copy on your local machine and on your server.

For more protection, I recommend using BackupBuddy.  This is a premium plugin that provides backup of database and file system.  This plugin enables you to create complete backups and restore when needed.

The cream of the crop for backup support is VaultPress.  It is a system developed by the makers of WordPress, Automattic and provides unparalleled support for backups.

8.  Monitoring Changes

Monitoring changes to your site is a critical step in knowing what to correct if a security breach occurs.  If you are hacked, you need to make sure you get all the files corrected and cleaned or you are exposed for multiple attacks.

WordPress File Monitor keeps track of any files that have any added/deleted content.  You can then know where the hack has occurred and are better able to prevent future events.

You Can’t Be Perfect

There is no such thing as perfect security for a website, just ask Bank of America and the Department of Defense.  Being hacked is part of the risk we take by being on the web.  It is fairly unregulated and open to all comers.  Our best option is to prepare for an attack and be ready to respond immediately.

If you would like added security and support for your website.  Be sure to check out our maintenance and support services.  We can provide various levels of support for you website.

Not Using WordPress will Destroy Your Business

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Your online business success is absolutely critical!

If you are still waiting on someone else to update the content of your website you are loosing money.  Your customers are getting out of date information and you are having to pay third party to change your website.

Unless you have experience with advanced applications for web management, you are relying on a “webmaster” to manage your website.  This is not BEST for business.

If you are not using WordPress, you are destroying your business!

If you are like most small business owners, you are working long hours each week just to grow your business.  Stopping to manage your website is probably the farthest thing from your mind.

But think about what you are actually doing.  You are taking two very precious resources, time and money, and getting very little return on investment.  It adversely effects the bottom line and that is bad for business.

WordPress can give you both, time and money

Using WordPress for your business is going to save you money.  WordPress is an open-source application.  This means that it is supported by a large community of programmers instead of a large software company.  This allows WordPress to go through several updates per year keeping the software safe and secure.  It also means that the software is FREE to use and modify.

Unlike most software used for website design and maintenance, WordPress offers a full array of tools that cost your business nothing! NADA!

Since the software functions similarly to a familiar word processor, adding content is simple to do.  Most users are able to manage their own websites with minimal time investment, because the software is simple to use.  It has a very short learning curve.

So Why Use WordPress?

Here are 7 reasons why I highly recommend all small business owners use WordPress for their business website.

1.  OPEN SOURCE – This means the software is free to use and modify.  Making it an excellent choice for the bottom line.

2.  SIMPLE TO USE – Although very robust as a CMS, WP is incredibly simple to use.  Adding pages or post is a matter of a click and then your adding content.

3.  SEO READY – Every business is trying to find ways to get their business to be number one in Google.  WordPress has several built in SEO features that makes search engines LOVE your website.

4.  NO DESIGN SKILLS NEEDED – Most small business owners are not graphic designers.  There are thousands of premium website designs that are free to use.  We highly recommend the Genesis Framework because it has excellent design and SEO features right out of the box.

5.  EXTENSIONS – The WordPress community is continually developing plug-ins that add functionality to your site.  If you need a contact form or an image gallery, there is a plug-in available that will add those features without you needing to know how to code.

6.  SUPPORT – By visiting the forums or searching Google, you can find the answer to almost every question or problem.  The community is very supportive and helpful.

7.  SIMPLE INSTALL – WordPress boast of a 5-minute install.  Most hosting services offer a simple install using scripts.  The hosting install is faster than 5-minutes and is point and click.  It is very simple to have a site up and running on your domain in a matter of minutes.

What are you waiting for?

We highly recommend using WordPress for you small business web needs.  It is able to do all you need and is very friendly to your bottom line.

If you run your business like I do, every penny matters.  I want to make sure I’m getting the most for ever dollar I spend.  WordPress is a tool that will help lower your web cost while improving your web presence.

Not Using WordPress for you business website, will destroy your business!